Thursday, May 10, 2018

NRAAM 2018 – Saturday Review Day

Not that I had a plan for ANY of NRA
AM, but I decided Saturday that I’d revisit some of the products that I’ve
reviewed over the years. So, after getting my voting out of the way and
figuring out some sort of plan at the press room, I tied my shoes (yeah, it’s
about to get real) and hit the floor.I
planned to focus on some of my “go to’s” for my AR builds.Namely, and in no particular order, Magpul,
Adams Arms, AeroPrecision USA, KNS Precision, and Diamondhead. And as a bonus
and since they were there, I thought a visit to Barrett was in order. Outside
of those I would see how much time I had left that day.

As some of you may know I’m a pretty
staunch Magpul fanboi.Aside from a
couple of notable exceptions (cough, BAD lever, cough) they are spot on for
putting out a product that is rugged, dependable, works out of the box, and is
the best bang for the buck.Talking to
one of their reps that day, they’re being pretty cagey about what’s new on the
horizon.Although he did say they might
be working on a magazine for the M14 platform. But that’s been a running gag
for a while now.Nothing on a Gen 4 for
their mags, no word on any new AR or other rifle furniture. I can understand
their reticence on talking out of turn, though.They got a little burned when their Rem700 stock wasn’t perfect on it’s
first release and the delays that resulted.I’ve used the UBR on a couple of carbine builds, their PRS for a 22”
precision based around BCM’s Mod 12 18” precision upper as well as their AR MOE
rifle stock on an LR-308 build. Aside from the UBR and PRS being heavy and both
those rifles ending up on the high end for finished weights they are my first
choice for AR builds unless I’m focusing on weight.And it will come as no surprise to anyone
that Magpul pmags are my only choice for my AR and LR platforms.And because Magpul really failed to market it
well enough, any of the furniture that Magpul put out in the sand color were
designed to take Rit Dyes.There’s an
excellent article about that over on GunMag Warehouse’s website at https://gunmagwarehouse.com/blog/ritdye_Sand_Pmags/.
And finally, we talked about the demise
of the dust cover.Traditionally, the
feed lips on the top of the mag were a very common wear point.Those lips spreading would make a magazine
useless and it was very hard to tell they’d spread enough to cause them to
fail. Trust me, I’ve bought my share of Korean M14 mags and I’m very familiar.The material used in the pmags removed that
fail point in their mags.So, keeping pmags
fully loaded in storage won’t affect their useful life.I would still recommend using dust covers on
mags you keep loaded in long term storage because, well honestly, dust. Needing
to keep the rounds from pressing on the feed lips and bending them just won’t
happen on pmags. But keeping dust and sand out of them will keep that out of
your rifle and gumming up that system.

One of my first builds, and one that
turned into my truck rifle, made use of Adams Arm’s piston conversion kit.When I built this rifle Adams Arms’ kit had
only been out for a couple of years. Then, the only option had a gas block that
was the same height as the receiver and had an adjustable gas piston system.
And that will tell you how long this rifle has been knocking around in the back
of my truck.I’ve yet to have the piston
system fail. Since then, they’ve introduced a low-profile gas block version
that comes in either an adjustable version or a fixed version.I am tempted to get their fixed low-profile
gas block version and see how it stands up to life knocking around in a
truck.When I first put this on my rifle
I had a hard time getting the information that I needed to make sure that the
piston arm had free clearance to travel back and forth, and then finding a hand
guard that fit that. Since then, the sheer number of handguards that are
available on the market has increased so much that finding a free float or
standard hand guard that will accommodate the piston arm has ceased to be a problem.
The only complaint that I have with the Adams Arms is the bolt spring that they
have.This keeps the bolt from sitting
locked in the receiver. Since I keep the rifle stored broken down, I have to be
conscious of using my thumb to keep the BCG pressed in when mating the upper
and lower. Otherwise, I’m banging the BCG into the lower. Talking with their
rep at NRA AM, she did say that you can run the system without that bolt
spring, and many people have, but it might drag a bit when operating.

Speaking of my truck rifle. That was
the first build that I used AeroPrecision’s upper and lower on.At the time, all the research I did showed
that there were only a handful of actual AR receiver manufacturers. Everyone else
contracted to have their name stamped on the side. AeroPrecision of one of
those handful and they had an option to have the PDQ ambi-bolt release lever
preinstalled on their lower.More on
that later.That upper and lower, bought
at separate times, had an amazingly tight mating. I was impressed with their
machining and finishing and honestly, they’ve been practically the only choice
on my builds since then.They’ve
introduced an integral free float handguard mounting platform on their uppers
that makes installing a free float handguard a breeze. No more trying to get
the gas tube timed right. Everything bolts right up, no muss, no fuss. One of
my next builds will definitely use one of these enhanced uppers.The rep told me they’re doing something like
an open source spec for these and there’s already a couple of manufacturers who
are going free floats for this system.

KNS Precision Inc. has for a long
time now been my go to for all pins and small parts for my AR builds. There’s definitely a school of thought out
there that believes that those pins are those pins and pins are pins are
pins.I’ll preface this with saying this
is totally anecdotal, but I’ve replaced enough broken trigger pins on ranges of
OTHER peoples’ AR’s that having never had any KNS pins fail on me is cheap
peace of mind.I talked with the owner
of KNS for a good amount of time on Saturday.We covered their new AK stuff which include the pins as well as adapters
for folding stocks and an improved piston for the gas system.They also have a quick disconnect take down
pin that I will be picking up and running a torture test on.

On my most recent .308 build I used
Diamondhead USA VRS T-308 handguard.Aesthetically,
I liked the look of the handguard with matching flash hider. Since I bought
this they’ve improved the ergonomics on the VR series of handguards and
introduced a wider range on those handguards.I liked the amount of mounting options their handguards give you. There
are plenty of either KeyMod or MLok mounting points to put anything you want in
the most comfortable position for you on the rifle. They also do backup sights, compensators, and
gas blocks, but I honestly don’t have any experience with either of those and
as such really don’t have an opinion on them.

I had enough time to swing by
Barretts booth and talked to them. There are no real new systems coming from them
that they’d admit to but there are upgrades and improvements to the buffer
system on their M82 rifles that will have me sending mine in for a PMS check
and overhaul.

The rest of the day and Sunday, I
just spent wandering around looking for anything that would just out at me as “The
New Thing” ™.Unfortunately, nothing
really jumped out at me in that arena. Maybe next year.But that’s the thing with the AR platform.
There’s been sixty some odd years of improvement on this platform. It’s going
to be a hard hurdle to clear to supersede it.Until that phased plasma rifle in the 40-watt range comes out I’ll
happily keep playing with the AR.